RRND Email Full Text (Scheduled)

  • Somewhat Celebratory Publisher’s Note

    Hey, everyone …

    Today’s edition of the freedom movement’s daily newspaper is the six thousandth edition as “Rational Review News Digest.” The first edition under that brand came out on December 23, 2002.

    Of course, we’ve been around since 1991 as Libernet and then Freedom News Daily (I tell that whole story at least a couple of times a year, so I’ll spare you the extended verbiage today). but wow … 6,000 editions! Very cool! And thanks to our readers for sticking with us!

    Side note: Over the course of more than 24 years, it is quite possible (indeed, likely) that I have occasionally forgotten to manually add one to the edition count, or maybe (less likely) accidentally incremented that count by two instead of one. So I guess this COULD be the 5,997th edition or the 6,001st edition. I apologize if that’s the case.

    And, of course, the note that I always append to these moments: We’re reader-supported. You’re a reader. Please consider supporting us with a one-time donation or a little something every month at:

    https://news.rationalreview.com/support-rrnd

    Have a great week!

    Yours in liberty,
    Tom Knapp
    Publisher
    Rational Review News Digest / Freedom News Daily

  • Video of ICE murder of Texas man raises questions about government claim

    Source: Washington Post

    “Video released by investigators in the [murder] last March of a U.S. citizen by a federal immigration agent calls into question a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson’s claim that the victim ‘intentionally ran over’ a different agent before being shot. The investigative material released Friday by the Texas Department of Public Safety shows that Ruben Ray Martinez, 23, was given conflicting instructions as he encountered law enforcement officers from multiple agencies near the scene of a previous vehicle accident in South Padre Island, Texas, in the early-morning hours of March 15. His car moved forward very slowly in the moments before Homeland Security Investigations Agent Jack C. Stevens fired three shots into Martinez’s blue Ford sedan. The footage does not show Martinez speeding up rapidly or appearing to target a second Homeland Security Investigations agent, Hector Sosa.” (03/07/26)

    https://archive.is/HPtEd

  • US issues license authorizing sales of Venezuelan gold

    Source: San Diego Union-Tribune

    “The U.S. issued a license Friday that authorizes dealings with Minerven, Venezuela’s state-owned gold mining company, in the latest sign of the Trump administration’s intent to exercise more control over that country’s natural resources. The license was issued after U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum met in Venezuela with acting President Delcy Rodríguez this week, as well as with representatives of more than two dozen U.S. mining and minerals companies. Many of them previously operated in Venezuela. Burgum said Venezuela’s government gave security assurances to mining companies interested in investing in the country, where mineral-rich areas have long been controlled by guerrilla members, gangs and other illegal groups. Under the license, people and companies from Russia, Iran, North Korea and Cuba are not authorized to engage in any contracts with Minerven.” (03/06/26)

    https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/03/06/venezuela-gold/

  • NASA’s DART spacecraft changed a binary asteroid’s orbit around the sun, in a first for a human-made object

    Source: Engadget

    “When NASA crashed a spacecraft into the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos in 2022, it altered both Dimorphos’ orbit around its parent asteroid, Didymos, and the two objects’ orbit around the sun, according to new research. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said in a press release that this ‘marks the first time a human-made object has measurably altered the path of a celestial body around the Sun.’ It’s a promising result as scientists work to find a feasible method of defending Earth from hazardous space objects. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission was designed to demonstrate one possible way of deflecting such an object, targeting the non-threatening moonlet Dimorphos, which is about 560 feet wide.” (03/07/26)

    https://www.engadget.com/science/space/nasas-dart-spacecraft-changed-a-binary-asteroids-orbit-around-the-sun-in-a-first-for-a-human-made-object-210529924.html?src=rss


  • The Operation was a Success, But the Patient Died

    Source: Notablog
    by Chris Matthew Sciabarra

    “This war with Iran is an extension of the dynamics that have always driven US foreign policy. And nothing will stop this President from the path of destruction he has chosen — certainly not the Congress, which has long been ceding its constitutional responsibilities to the executive branch. Indeed, House Speaker Mike Johnson denies that the US is even involved in a ‘war.’ And Senate Republicans have blocked any war power limits to this operation, giving Trump a rubberstamp to do whatever the hell he wants. The warmongers among us serve the administration by labeling as ‘traitors’ those who oppose US intervention abroad. This has become a virtual rite of passage for critics in times of war.” (03/07/26)

    https://notablog.net/2026/03/07/the-operation-was-a-success-but-the-patient-died/

  • Neo-Trumpers: The Next Mutation?

    Source: Garrison Center
    by Joel Schlosberg

    “A New York Times columnist offering pointers for ‘Pitchfork Pat’ Buchanan-type populists on ‘the isolationist right who thought Trump shared his views’ might seem akin to a mad scientist named Frankenstein offering a road map to a pitchforks-and-torches peasant mob.  Yet Michelle Goldberg does just that in ‘The President Was Never Antiwar’ (March 2). While maintaining that Donald Trump was indeed the embodiment through which ‘the once marginalized politics of Patrick Buchanan became a dominant force in the Republican Party,’ Goldberg insists that ‘Trump was never Buchanan’s heir when it came to foreign policy.’ … While ‘it is true that he broke with key elements of neoconservative ideology,’ he hasn’t distanced himself from even ‘the most fanatical of neoconservatives,’ preferring instead to discard the ideology’s ‘notion that American power should ever be constrained by a veneer of idealism.'” (03/07/26)

    https://thegarrisoncenter.org/archives/20399

  • And just like that MAGA peaceniks transform into neocons

    Source: Orange County Register
    by Steven Greenhut

    “MAGA’s philosophical twists and turns are hard to follow given that whenever Donald Trump changes his mind his supporters have three go-to approaches. First, they claim his latest notion is part of a 3D chess game even if, by all appearances, Trump would struggle to play one-level tic-tac-toe. Second, they distract our attention: Didn’t Barack Obama do this, too? Third, they get with the program and shamelessly back whatever the president is doing. Sometimes MAGA-supporting influencers with their own agendas and philosophies take issue with some Trump policy. But rank-and-file MAGA always follows the Dear Leader even if it means contradicting some Deeply Held Principle they espoused weeks ago.” (03/06/26)

    https://archive.is/IzbFY

  • The War He’s Always Wanted

    Source: The Weekly Dish
    by Andrew Sullivan

    “For me and many others, the Iraq War of 2003 was a life-altering lesson in humility. In the wake of 9/11, with trauma warping my frontal cortex, I backed a pre-meditated, pre-emptive war for regime change in the Middle East — something stupid and immoral I soon realized, however well intentioned. It changed me. But at least in those tense, polarized months of 2002 and 2003, we had hashed out the case for war thoroughly beforehand, as democracies do. … Come with me a little further back in time to the Persian Gulf War of 1991. That was a war started by Saddam Hussein, not us. How did we go about a new war in the Middle East back then? Well, we had another big public debate, another trip to the UN, and then another vote in the Congress. It was closer than we remember: just 52-47 in the Senate (with one abstention). … Seems like another planet, doesn’t it?” (03/06/26)

    https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-war-hes-always-wanted-c47

  • Run Rampant

    Source: Common Sense
    by Paul Jacob

    “We live in a great Age of Conspiracy Theories. I’m not quite on board. As the Internet grew up, with it came all the condemnations of conspiracy theories, run rampant. The Internet, we were told, was problematic in that not only was information readier at hand than ever before, but so was it easier to share and nurture all these goofy conspiracy theories. You know: JFK was killed by someone other than Oswald, or also by others, in addition to Oswald. Or … UFOs are real, and the government is covering it up. Or the Rothschilds are behind it all. You know the kind of thing I’m talking about. Ick. Yet: The government now admits that UFOs are real …. Further: As we uncover the grotesquerie in the Epstein Files, we learn that he proudly served Rothschild banking interests! So let’s not get started on the JFK assassination.” (03/06/26)

    https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/03/06/run-rampant/

  • The US Soldiers Killed In This War Were Not Heroes

    Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
    by Caitlin Johnstone

    “The US soldiers who are getting killed in the war with Iran were not heroes. They did not die defending their country. They did not die fighting to protect Americans. They died advancing the geostrategic agendas of oligarchs and empire managers which benefit ordinary Americans in no way. It’s important not to valorize these people for two reasons. Firstly, it assists US military recruitment by falsely portraying these imperial stormtrooper careers as noble and heroic. Secondly, it falsely frames the war they died in as a righteous cause which is making the world a better place, rather than as a war of aggression against a nation that posed literally zero threat to their homeland. These are not harmless little white lies. They are extremely destructive propaganda narratives which facilitate acts of mass military slaughter on real human beings. Don’t assist the warmongers in circulating these lies.” (03/07/26)

    https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2026/03/07/the-us-soldiers-killed-in-this-war-were-not-heroes-and-other-notes/

  • It’s up to Congress to disrupt Pam Bondi’s Epstein cover-up

    Source: USA Today
    by Chris Brennan

    “U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice have been openly violating a federal law for two and a half months to shield President Donald Trump from transparency in the metastasizing ‘Epstein files’ scandal. And now Bondi will get a second chance at explaining herself in Congress. But based on her last performance before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee in February, expect only more pathetic theatrics and zero acceptance of accountability. Still, something has shifted …. It looks like Bondi will finally face some tough questions from members of her own political party about how she has botched the release of the Epstein files. And that’s long overdue.” (03/08/26)

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2026/03/08/pam-bondi-epstein-files-cover-up-house-subpoena/88999569007/

  • Don’t turn banks into citizenship police

    Source: The Hill
    by Solveig Singleton

    “President Trump is reportedly considering an order requiring financial institutions to check customers’ citizenship, a curious departure from the administration’s professed concerns about the burden of bureaucracy and debanking. … Customers unnerved by the order might move their money from chartered depository institutions to informal family, religious, and community-based financial networks. … Federal statutes forbid financial service companies from alerting customers when surveillance reports are sent to authorities. But being asked to prove citizenship on everyday occasions is an intrusion people are sure to notice.” [editor’s note: Singleton’s wording implies that she MAY think moving money from state-surveilled institutions “to informal family, religious, and community-based financial networks” is a bad thing. I disagree. I consider it an essential precursor to restoring economic freedom, even though I also oppose the prospective “order” – TLK] (03/07/26)

    https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/5771913-financial-privacy-concerns-trump/

  • Sifting fact from fiction in the Iran war

    Source: Christian Science Monitor
    by staff

    “A very old type of information warfare – spreading false narratives to rattle an enemy’s population during a conflict – now has a new and vital adversary: fact-checkers. On March 3, for example, a video went viral showing Israel’s second-largest city, Tel Aviv, in flames from multiple strikes by Iranian missiles, four days after the first Israeli and American attacks on Iran. It attracted more than 14 million views. ‘The video is AI-generated, and features multiple errors consistent with AI clips,’ posted BBC Verify senior journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh. ‘It’s not real.’ After spotting many similar fake images, Mr. Sardarizadeh concluded: ‘This war might have already broken the record for the highest number of AI-generated videos and images that have gone viral during a conflict…. Welcome to our brave new world of AI misinformation.'” (03/06/26)

    https://www.csmonitor.com/Editorials/the-monitors-view/2026/0306/Sifting-fact-from-fiction-in-the-Iran-war

  • Laughs in grew up Southern Baptist

    Source: Sex and the State
    by Cathy Reisenwitz

    “Who keeps insisting that no one look too deeply into their claims? It’s the Southern Baptist Convention, who covered up their rape crisis for decades. It’s the leadership of the rape cult that is Evangelical Christianity. It’s the Catholic Church. If sexual shame and stigma kept vulnerable people safe from rapists we’d have gotten rid of rape by now. Instead, where sexuality is most repressed, you see the highest rates of sexual abuse. This. Is. Not. A. Coincidence.” (03/06/26)

    https://cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/p/laughs-in-grew-up-southern-baptist

  • Whose “Stolen Land” Is It, Anyway?

    Source: Town Hall
    by Paul Driessen

    “Land acknowledgements have become de rigueur at commencement ceremonies, film and music award events, and other programs. Something like this: ‘We acknowledge that the land on which we gather is the stolen and occupied territory of the Indigenous First Nation People who stewarded the land through many generations before White European colonialists seized it.’ Many take these acknowledgements quite seriously. Indeed, professors and employees have been disciplined for mocking them, because employers find mockery ‘offensive’ and ‘disruptive’ – unlike their reactions to ‘mostly peaceful’ Antifa, BLM and pro-Palestinian harassment and riots. When accepting her Grammy, singer-songwriter Billie Eilish used her onstage opportunity to criticize Trump’s immigration policies, saying ‘no one is illegal on stolen land’. Unless, of course, someone tried to enter her gated community and assert ownership over or enjoy a sandwich in her million-dollar mansion.” (03/07/26)

    https://townhall.com/columnists/pauldriessen/2026/03/07/whose-stolen-land-is-it-anyway-n2672448

  • OpenAI on Surveillance and Autonomous Killings: You’re Going to Have to Trust Us

    Source: The Intercept
    by Sam Biddle

    “OpenAI says Americans shouldn’t worry about the ethics of its new Pentagon contract. You’ll have to take their word for it (and Pete Hegseth’s).” (03/08/26)

    https://theintercept.com/2026/03/08/openai-anthropic-military-contract-ethics-surveillance/

  • With His “Unconditional Surrender” Goal, Trump Signals a Long War

    Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
    by Ryan McMaken

    “Historians have long noted that demands for unconditional surrender have worked to prolong conflicts rather than shorten them, leading to needless death on both sides. After all, Trump is essentially saying that the Iranians should put themselves in a position of accepting whatever terms the United States seeks to unilaterally impose, including the total dissolution of the Iranian state, plus sanctions, punishments, occupations and other humiliations. What government would accede to this? Very few would, which is why only very weak, small, and relatively unarmed regimes can be forced into accepting unconditional surrender after anything less than a protracted war. Iran, however, is not weak, small, or relatively unarmed. And, geography is in its favor.” (03/06/26)

    https://mises.org/mises-wire/his-unconditional-surrender-goal-trump-signals-long-war

  • What Is the US Exit Strategy From Its War on Iran?

    Source: Common Dreams
    by Medea Benjamin & Nicolas JS Davies

    “The United States has once again launched a war in the Middle East based on false claims about weapons of mass destruction. Like the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the US assault on Iran rests on allegations that international inspectors have already debunked. But beyond the false pretext lies an even more pressing question that few officials in Washington seem willing (or able) to answer: What is the US exit strategy from its war on Iran? President Trump has justified the attack by claiming that Iran refuses to renounce nuclear weapons. As he prepared to launch the war, Trump repeatedly claimed, ‘We haven’t heard those secret words: “We will never have a nuclear weapon”.’ Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, responded by reiterating Iran’s long-standing policy, stating plainly: ‘Iran will under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon.'” (03/07/26)

    https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/what-is-the-us-exit-strategy-from-iran-war

  • Trump: Iran War Is an Open-Ended, Regime-Change War, Followed by Nation-Building

    Source: Glenn Greenwald
    by Glenn Greenwald

    “Every new war that the U.S. wages — at least over the past six decades — is accompanied by a series of official lies, shifting and inconsistent claims about the war’s goals, and constant exaggerations about the grand progress toward glorious victory. Now, a full week into the Iran War started by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his partner, the American President Donald Trump, this war already equals, if not surpasses, the brazen war propaganda that instigated and fueled those prior ones.” (03/06/26)

    https://greenwald.substack.com/p/trump-iran-war-is-an-open-ended-regime